Almost every trip lands in Kathmandu and stays in the valley for a few days, because Patan and Bhaktapur hold the other two royal squares and sit half an hour away. From there the country splits three ways. West to Pokhara, the lakeside town at the foot of the Annapurnas and the place people rest either side of a trek. East to Lukla and Namche Bazaar, where the Everest routes start with a flight into a hillside runway. South to the Terai, flat and warm, for rhino and tiger at Chitwan or Bardiya and the Buddha's birthplace at Lumbini. Two weeks covers the valley, one trek and one park without rushing any of them. Come in October and November, or in March, because the dry windows either side of the monsoon are when the mountains are visible at all.
2 Nepal city guides
Fun fact
Nepal is the only country whose flag is not a rectangle. Two stacked pennants carry a moon and a sun, and the shape is written into the constitution along with the geometry for drawing it.
Stereotypes, sorted out
The realityPlenty of trips here involve no walking at all. The Kathmandu Valley alone carries seven UNESCO monument zones inside an hour of each other, Chitwan and Bardiya are jungle parks with rhino and tiger in them, and Lumbini is a pilgrimage site with monasteries built by a dozen Buddhist countries. Trekking is the headline. It is not the whole paper.
The realityThe Annapurna region takes more trekkers than the Khumbu does, and its routes are lower, warmer and reachable by road rather than by a flight that weather cancels. Everest Base Camp is also not a viewpoint of Everest: the mountain is hidden behind Nuptse from the camp itself, and the view people photograph is from the climb up Kala Patthar the next morning.
The realityNepal was never colonised, which shaped everything downstream. It keeps its own language and script, its own Bikram Sambat calendar running decades ahead of the Gregorian one, and a clock set 45 minutes off the hour. The Kathmandu Valley is Newar civilisation, with its own language, festivals, architecture and food, and none of that is an import.
The realityThe 7.8 quake of 25 April 2015 killed almost 9,000 people and did real damage to the durbar squares, and the reconstruction has been going on ever since. The monuments people come for are standing again. The way to help is to turn up: tourism is a large part of how the rebuild was paid for.
The realityOn the main routes it means walking between villages and sleeping in teahouses, in a bed, over a plate of dal bhat. No technical skill is involved and no camping gear is carried. What it does need is days: altitude is a schedule problem, not a fitness one, and the itinerary that skips acclimatisation is the one that fails.
Cultural notes that actually help
- Shoes come off at the door of a home and at most temples. Feet are the impure end of the body, so do not point them at a person, a shrine or the food.
- Eat with the right hand, and keep it clear of your mouth when you serve yourself from a shared dish. Anything your lips have touched is jutho and nobody else will eat it.
- Walk clockwise around stupas, chortens and mani walls, keeping them on your right. It costs nothing and everyone notices.
- Ask before photographing people, and expect a no at cremation ghats and inside shrines. The main courtyard at Pashupatinath is closed to non-Hindus, and that is a rule rather than a suggestion.
- Greet with namaste and palms together rather than a handshake, particularly with women and with anyone older than you. Public affection between couples reads as odd almost everywhere outside Thamel.
- Do not hand sweets, pens or rupees to children on the trails. It builds a habit of begging from trekkers. Give through a school, a health post or your guide's own village project instead.
Famous Nepali faces
Tenzing Norgay Sherpa
Pasang Lhamu Sherpa
Kami Rita Sherpa
Nirmal Purja
Prithvi Narayan Shah
Bhanubhakta Acharya
Laxmi Prasad Devkota
Arniko
Ani Choying Drolma
Narayan Gopal
Manisha Koirala
Prabal Gurung
Mira Rai
Paras Khadka
Anuradha Koirala
Sanduk Ruit
Mahabir Pun
Must-try Nepali food
Dal bhat
Rice, lentil soup, a vegetable curry and pickle, refilled until you stop eating. The national plate, eaten twice a day, and the reason a walking day works.
Dhido
Buckwheat or millet stirred into a stiff porridge and pinched into soup by hand. Older than rice in the hills, and served with pride rather than nostalgia.
Gundruk
Leafy greens fermented, dried, then boiled sour into soup. Winter food from before refrigeration, and the taste Nepalis abroad say they miss.
Aloo tama
Potato and sour bamboo shoot in a black-eyed bean broth, thick enough to eat with rice. Order it once and it becomes the thing you order.
Momo
Steamed or fried dumplings with a tomato and sesame dip. Buff is the Kathmandu default, chicken and vegetable are everywhere, and the jhol version arrives swimming.
Sekuwa
Meat marinated in ginger, garlic and timur pepper, then grilled over wood. Eaten standing, with beaten rice to soak it up.
Sukuti
Air-dried meat, chewed as it comes or fried hot with onion and chilli. The bar snack, and the one that travels in a rucksack.
Bhatmas sadeko
Soaked soybeans tossed with mustard oil, chilli, lemon and coriander. It lands on the table with the beer without being ordered.
Chatamari
A thin rice-flour crepe cooked with minced meat and egg on top. People call it Newari pizza, which undersells it.
Bara
A black lentil patty fried until it puffs, often with an egg broken over it. Breakfast in Patan, and the test of a Newari kitchen.
Choila
Buffalo grilled over flame then tossed with mustard oil, chilli and timur. Sharp, smoky, served cold with beaten rice.
Samay baji
The festival platter: beaten rice, choila, black soybeans, ginger, egg and a measure of aila. A whole cuisine on one brass plate.
Thukpa
Noodle soup with vegetables or meat, Tibetan in origin, and the standard order once the trail starts climbing.
Tibetan bread
Deep-fried flatbread served with honey at breakfast and with curry at dinner. Every teahouse on the high routes makes it.
Yomari
A steamed rice-flour parcel filled with molasses and sesame, shaped like a fig. Newar households make it at the winter full moon.
Juju dhau
The king of curds: buffalo yoghurt set in unglazed clay pots in Bhaktapur, thick enough to hold a spoon upright.
Sel roti
A ring of sweet fermented rice batter, fried crisp outside and chewy in. Made by the armful at Tihar.
Chiya
Milk tea boiled with ginger, cardamom and cinnamon, sold by the glass on every corner. Ask for it kalo if you want the leaf to come through.
Tongba
Fermented millet in a wooden pot, topped up with hot water and drunk through a metal straw. East Nepal's winter drink, and a long one.
Raksi
Home-distilled millet or rice spirit, poured at festivals and at the end of a long walking day. Strength varies by household.
